Re: [Ksummit-2013-discuss] [ATTEND] How to act on LKML (was: [00/19] 3.10.1-stable review)

[Ben Hutchings]

On Tue, 2013-07-16 at 19:50 -0400, Theodore Ts'o wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 16, 2013 at 03:43:57PM -0700, Sarah Sharp wrote:
[...]
> > > Keep in mind that there are some cultures where even pointing out a
> > > technical flaw in code might considered bringing deep shame on the
> > > engineer and their company.  So how sensitive people are to criticism
> > > during an electronic exchange is always going to be highly culutrally
> > > and personally variable.
> > 
> > Yes, that's true.  Some kernel developers are better at moderating their
> > comments and tone towards individuals who are "sensitive".  
> 
> ... and actually, I think it's actually quite difficult to find cases
> where Linus has used a very harsh tone towards someone who would be
> "sensitive".
[...]

Someone wrote on debian-private a little while back that 'I will not
work on anything Linus might be involved in', and in a later mail linked
to this example of abuse:

http://mark.dreamwidth.org/22320.html

Honestly, if I had seen newbies being treated that way before I was
involved, I may well have made the same resolution.  As it happens, when
I made a quite basic mistake in the format one of my first patches back
in 1999, Linus was entirely polite in correcting me.

In fact, even in the pull request that's referenced here, Linus, you
were polite but firm in your first two responses.  When you're perfectly
capable of doing that, why spoil it by adding insults?

Ben.

-- 
Ben Hutchings
Humans are not rational beings; they are rationalising beings.

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